Fudan University was established in 1905 as Fudan Public School. It was the first institution of higher education to be founded by a Chinese person. The two characters, fù (“return”) and dàn (“dawn”) were borrowed from A Commentary on The Classic of History （《尚书大传·虞夏传》）, of which the part on the Yu and the Xia dynasties mentions: “Brilliant are the sunshine and moonlight, again the morning radiance returns at dawn.” 

In 1917, the institution was renamed Fudan University, which has been kept ever since. On April 27th, 2000, a new Fudan University emerged after the merger with Shanghai Medical University. In this decade, Fudan University became a comprehensive research-oriented university renowned both at home and abroad for its arts, sciences and medicine. In 2005, Fudan celebrated the 100 anniversary of the founding of the university and reaffirmed its goal of constructing a socialist comprehensive university with world-class academic capabilities. Fudan implemented a new model of continuous general education throughout the entire undergraduate studies and a talent cultivation system that accentuates innovation ability and inquiry skills. 

To fit such rapid growth, Fudan expanded to four campuses: Handan, Fenglin, Jiangwan and Zhangjiang. In 1927, No.4 Sun Yat-Sen University School of Medicine was set up in Wusong. It is the first medical school established and run by Chinese people. The founders of the medical school, Yan Fuqing, Le Wenzhao and Gao Jinglang, practiced medicine and education with the sheer intention to relieve patients from pain. Fudan University is famous worldwide for its excellence and devotion in research. Deep inside the core of our proud rankings (QS 44) lies the determination of our scientists to use their cutting-edge innovative findings to serve the country and the shared interest of mankind. 

The diversity and professionality of the research across current 27 departments related to the science and medical disciplines, 5 State Key Laboratories, 2 National Research Centers for clinical medicine, 1 national Innovation Center for Manufacture, 1 Shanghai Mathematics Center and 80 ministry level research platforms, means that we not only seek for perfection in basic research but put our passion in translational research to make a different world as well. 

In the past years, our wonderful faculty and significant fellows have rooted Fudan University as the Oriental Pearl of China, which takes the responsibility of addressing the research frontier problems and serves the strategic and social needs of the country with the steady/increasing research reputation and an excellent scientific translational capacity. 

Fudaners are committed to achieving perfection in research and translational sciences management, and to ensuring that our research contributes to the well-being of the society. We seek to provide an innovative and supportive environment in all disciplines like Math, Advanced Materials, Life Sciences, Micro-electronics and Clinical Research etc. 

The interdisciplinarity of ASICS, AI and New Energy could generate and flourish; the excellence and diversity of our research across the Schools of Arts & Humanities, Humanities & Social Sciences, Clinical Medicine, Technology, Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences could help us grasp the opportunity of a changing pulse in the global scientific community and we are also well-positioned to make our unique contributions to the world innovation atlas and the formulation of policy.